Editor's note: "War Stories" is a regular feature in which Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research. Van Nuys, Calif., presents humorous stories of life in the research trenches.

I once worked on a mail survey of dog owners where an elderly panelist included a note with her completed questionnaire, confessing. "Rover died six months ago but I'm filling in this questionnaire as he would have if he were still alive."

Cathy Casteneda, head of research forTalbot' s, a firm that sells women's clothes through catalogs and retail outlets, tells of a mail survey her firm conducted. After giving Talbot's the highest possible ratings on all characteristics, one woman wrote in the space for additional comments, "My dog, Talbot, is named for my favorite place to shop! Keep up the good work!" Casteneda did not proceed to recommend the correspondent to Talbot's management as a spokeswoman.

Speaking of dog owner surveys, Al Popelka of Pacific Marketing Research recalls a product test where dog owners were recruited to evaluate a series of new dog foods, one per week over a period of five weeks.

After the fifth week one respondent reported, "I like this product the best because it didn't make my dog nearly as sick as the previous four products did!"

Popelka also remembers the time his company was shipping product around the country for a peanut butter taste test, and the test product for one city disappeared. In the midst of the sweat and tears of vexation, one of his project directors came up with the only logical solution, "It must be stuck to the roof of the truck!"

Harry Heller, often at the cutting edge of research, cites a focus group on razors he conducted early in his career. in the days when some felt the quality of information would be enhanced by loosening up respondents with cocktails. Midway through the session respondents were led to a bathroom where they were asked to try a prototype razor. One particularly relaxed respondent returned to the discussion room, his face flecked with small pieces of toilet paper, and reported, "That wass the greatesht shave I evver had in my whole life."

Alan Fine reports the time the research firm he then worked for was conducting a test of electric razors. Fine was less than two feet away from a respondent shaving on the other side of a one-way mirror. Fine was carefully perusing how the man shaved- which parts of his face he shaved first, which parts he had the most difficulty with and so on. When the man was done shaving he smiled and waved to Fine, who he could see through the somehow inadequate mirror.

Ron Gore of Facts in Focus reports a survey his interviewing service conducted for legal purposes on antiembolism stockings. When visiting nurses and doctors who had previously agreed to be interviewed at their place of busines, interviewers were supposed to show the two wooden legs they had been given, which were cloaked in the competitor's and the client's stockings. When Gore validated interviews, he found that one interviewer raised her skirt to display the products, one on each leg. It made much more sense to her for respondents to see the stockings on an actual person than on some artificial leg.